Sat 7th – Sun 8th March 2009

The Blackwater Hostel hosted fourteen club members for the weekend meet. With everyone accommodated in either two or four bunk rooms, each with the luxury of a television and all sharing a large cooking dining area, this month we went up market.

Saturday morning dawned with the cloud above the Mamores despite a strengthening north wind. Drummond Beattie, Spence Julian, Chrissy McKay with Patrick the dog, and Phil Cutts made an early start for Na Gruagaichean, Binnean Mor, and Binnean Beag.

The conditions on the tops were extreme; they encountered a heavy cornice and high avalanche risk along the ridge between Na Gruagaichean and Binnean Mor. When descending via Binnean Mor’s northern coire to the two lochans, they took many tumbles and made three unscheduled ice axe arrests.

After finishing  Binnean Beag they took two hours through waist deep melting snow to make the Coire an Lochan. Arriving back at the hostel for 2100hrs they had endured rain, snow, hail, blizzards, high winds and been forced to wade through deep snow and make numerous river crossings before returning in the dark, thus justifying Drummond’s quote “Thirteen hours of Hell.”

Paul and Jo Chappell decided not to do Beinn na Cailich and Mam na Gualainn due to low cloud and set off along the West Highland Way towards Fort William. The path was covered in either wet snow or running water; they carried on until 1200hrs and turned back to complete a six hour day.

Alan Duncan climbed Glas Bheinn via the Grey Mare’s waterfall and Loch Eilde Mor. First he had to overcome the navigational challenge of finding which path to take from Kinlochleven; follow the red, blue, or white sign? Despite the conditions, he persevered through some very deep snow to the summit and returned back to the hostel in seven hours forty five minutes.

Graeme Morrison set off from Druimavuic house and braved the wet, windy and misty weather through deep unconsolidated snow to Creach Bheinn completing a seven hour day with no views.

Evelyne Droege, Margaret Paterson, Fiona Duncan and Dave McLean set off in a south-westerly direction along the West Highland Way before heading up a wet steep grassy slope for Garbh Bheinn. They tried to avoid the deep soft snowfields, but by the 734 m top they had failed. Evelyne blasted a trail from there through the deep snow to the summit; pride preventing anyone else taking over from her. On the return leg to complete a six hour day, Margaret earned two free pints when she found Dave’s ice axe and compass, which he had dropped on the way down. She wasn’t able to pick up a bonus dram from Fiona though, who lost her gloves during descent.

Ali Erginsoy and Moira Baptie took advantage of the winter conditions and donned skins on their skis to climb to the summit of Meall a’Bhuiridh from the White Corries car park. They braved the bad weather, experiencing some ferocious gusts on the summit, and by the time they had skied and walked back to the car park, the rain had become a torrential down pour. Chai lattes and hot chocolate helped them celebrate their achievement and show that in winter conditions, skis are the only way to travel.

Sunday arrived and most people played their commonsense card and headed home, but three did venture out. Spence and Phil chose to climb Stob Ban in the Grey Corries. They experienced blizzards with very strong winds and whiteout conditions. In places the surface snow crust collapsed and they sank waist deep into the snow while their jackets froze up like cardboard and their gloves stuck to their ice axes. It was cold and the Lairig Leacach bothy was a welcome sight on their return from the hill to finish a six hour day.

Graeme Morrison enjoyed firmer snow conditions  than the day before, but stronger winds when he reached the ridge on his way to bag Stob Coire a’ Chearcaill, finishing off his weekend with a two and a half hour hill day.

In conclusion, you can still have an excellent hill day in bad weather, just don’t bite of more than you can chew.

Dave Galloway

For more photos from this meet, click here